iPlayer – Gigaomhttp://gigaom.com
The industry leader in emerging technology researchWed, 13 Dec 2017 17:05:31 +0000en-UShourly1BBC wants to expand iPlayer catch-up window to 30 days, extend Chromecast supporthttp://gigaom.com/2014/03/20/bbc-wants-to-expand-iplayer-catch-up-window-to-30-days-extend-chromecast-support/
http://gigaom.com/2014/03/20/bbc-wants-to-expand-iplayer-catch-up-window-to-30-days-extend-chromecast-support/#commentsThu, 20 Mar 2014 17:33:52 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=826658The BBC wants to give its viewers the ability to go back and watch any program that has aired over the last 30 days through its iPlayer, according to a iPlayer head Dan Taylor, who outlined the broadcaster’s plans for an expanded catch-up offering at this week’s TV Connect conference in London (hat tip to Broadband TV News). Currently, the iPlayer’s catch-up window extends seven days into the past.

The announcement comes just a week after the broadcaster launched the most recent version of the iPlayer, and on the heels of the BBC throwing its weight behind Google’s Chromecast streaming stick. The BBC’s iPlayer was one of the content launch partners when Google (s GOOG) began to sell Chromecast in Europe this week, and BBC Executive Product Manager Chris Yanda outlined the decision to support the product in a blog post that read in part:

“One of the reasons we decided to support Chromecast was that Apple TV currently works only with Apple devices. Chromecast has SDKs available for a number of different platforms including iOS, Android, and the Chrome browser for laptop and desktop computers. Today we’ve added support to the latest versions of both the Android and iOS versions of BBC iPlayer. Soon, we will also be adding support for the Chrome web browser on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS desktop and laptop computers for the new web version of iPlayer.”

The BBC now wants to also bring audio-only programming to Chromecast, and add Chromecast support to additional apps, including the BBC Sport app.

]]>http://gigaom.com/2014/03/20/bbc-wants-to-expand-iplayer-catch-up-window-to-30-days-extend-chromecast-support/feed/5BBC threatens to take BBC3 off the air, make it online-onlyhttp://gigaom.com/2014/03/05/bbc-threatens-to-take-bbc3-off-the-air-make-it-online-only/
http://gigaom.com/2014/03/05/bbc-threatens-to-take-bbc3-off-the-air-make-it-online-only/#commentsWed, 05 Mar 2014 19:08:11 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=822579The BBC’s BBC3 network, known as the birthplace of shows like Torchwood, Little Britain and Being Human, may not be accessible to U.K. residents with an antenna or a cable subscription for much longer. The broadcaster announced Wednesday that it may take the network off the air to save costs. Instead, BBC would become an internet channel that would only be accessible through the BBC’s iPlayer.

Turning to the internet for BBC3 could make sense. The channel is known for having a younger audience that is more likely to stream programming online as well.

And the BBC’s iPlayer already has a sizeable audience: In January, the BBC clocked 315 million video and audio streams through the platform. Three out of four iPlayer streams are video programming, 25 percent of these video streams get accessed through a smart TV, game console or connected device.

However, it’s not entirely clear that the BBC is going to follow through with its online-only plans for BBC3. Some have speculated that the broadcaster just wanted to cause enough outcry to keep the network financed for the foreseeable future, and a BBC News story helpfully suggested that “celebrities are already rallying behind the service.”

]]>http://gigaom.com/2014/03/05/bbc-threatens-to-take-bbc3-off-the-air-make-it-online-only/feed/4BBC scraps plan to expand iPlayer app globally, citing competition from Netflix and Amazonhttp://gigaom.com/2013/10/18/bbc-scraps-plan-to-expand-iplayer-app-globally-citing-competition-from-netflix-and-amazon/
http://gigaom.com/2013/10/18/bbc-scraps-plan-to-expand-iplayer-app-globally-citing-competition-from-netflix-and-amazon/#commentsFri, 18 Oct 2013 14:42:54 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=706166The BBC’s video-on-demand app, iPlayer, has gained a lot of ground in the U.K., its home country: It accounts for more than 50 percent of streaming video traffic there, according to recent estimates. But that’s not necessarily a recipe for international success. The BBC announced Friday that it is scrapping plans to expand the iPlayer app globally. Instead, the international app will be integrated into BBC.com (the non-U.K. version of its website).

The BBC began testing an international, paid version of the iPlayer app in 2011, rolling out the trial to 16 European countries (but never the U.S.). In the plan released Friday, however, the BBC said it will focus on video streaming for international viewers from its own website instead:

“The new BBC.com will include a long-form video player and will represent a single digital route to market for BBC.com’s partners and advertisers. As part of this move, the existing trial of the global iPlayer app, currently testing in 16 countries, will not be extended to any new markets, and it is proposed that the service will be integrated into BBC.com over time.”

“It is purely a branding question: If you want content you go to BBC.com,” Tim Davie, CEO of BBC Worldwide, told the Guardian. “It has been too fragmented and [globally] it is a ferocious market dominated by U.S. and Asian players – like Hulu, Netflix (s NFLX) and Amazon (s AMZN) – and we have to have scale and a real competitive edge.”

The BBC’s goal is to double global reach from 250 million users a week to 500 million users a week by 2022.

]]>http://gigaom.com/2013/10/18/bbc-scraps-plan-to-expand-iplayer-app-globally-citing-competition-from-netflix-and-amazon/feed/2UK’s Sky launches Roku-like box for just £9.99http://gigaom.com/2013/07/26/uks-sky-launches-roku-like-box-for-just-9-99/
http://gigaom.com/2013/07/26/uks-sky-launches-roku-like-box-for-just-9-99/#commentsFri, 26 Jul 2013 12:41:39 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=672067U.K. residents who want to test out cord-cutting without shelling out much money have a new option: On Friday, BSkyB’s Sky TV launched the Now TV box, a Web TV box that costs just £9.99 (USD $15.38).

The Now TV box’s content offerings are also more limited than Roku’s. To start, the box offers access to the BBC’s iPlayer, the BBC News app, Channel 5’s VOD service Demand 5, Sky News, Spotify, Facebook (s FB) and Flickr (s YHOO). Viewers can also buy a subscription to the streaming service Sky Movies (£8.99 a month for the first three months, then £15 a month) or a day pass to Sky Sports (£9.99 for 24 hours). Sky says it will add more offerings to Now TV over time.

BSkyB earnings: More households connecting their TVs to broadband

BSkyB also released its annual earnings report Friday. In the report, the company notes that “more than 2.7 million customers, one quarter of our TV base, have now connected their Sky+HD boxes to broadband, a rise of 170 percent on last year….meanwhile, our mobile video service Sky Go continues to perform well with quarterly users up 19% to 3.3 million, 166,000 of whom are now paying £5 a month for our new subscription service Sky Go Extra.” (Sky Go Extra lets users download movies for offline viewing on smartphones and laptops.)

Moving forward, the company said, “we will step up the roll-out of connected boxes across our base by offering a low-cost wireless connector to customers that have a Sky+HD box but haven’t yet connected it to broadband. We will also launch a new WiFi-enabled Sky+HD box as standard from September, rolling it out to targeted groups of customers who don’t yet have Sky+HD boxes.”

]]>http://gigaom.com/2013/07/26/uks-sky-launches-roku-like-box-for-just-9-99/feed/1BBC iPlayer App's iPhone Update Adds 500K New Users In A Weekhttp://gigaom.com/2011/12/19/419-bbc-iplayer-apps-iphone-update-adds-500k-new-users-in-a-week/
http://gigaom.com/2011/12/19/419-bbc-iplayer-apps-iphone-update-adds-500k-new-users-in-a-week/#commentsTue, 20 Dec 2011 02:43:40 +0000MediaGuardian]]>http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2011/12/20/419-bbc-iplayer-apps-iphone-update-adds-500k-new-users-in-a-week/The BBCiPlayer iOS app has been downloaded 1.1m times in the week since it was updated to run on Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch as well as iPad, says Daniel Danker, the broadcaster’s general manager of programmes and on demand.

“500,000 of those downloads were to users who had never installed the app before,” says Danker, who adds that the application’s new ability to stream TV shows and radio over 3G as well as Wi-Fi is also proving popular.

“Last week, 20 percent of all requests on iPhone were on 3G. That’s amazing in such a short period of time. And yet when we look at the audience feedback, nobody has really reported streaming problems over 3G.”

The growth of mobile and tablet iPlayer viewing has been sharp in 2011. In October, 16.5m programmes were watched on these devices, up 129 percent year-on-year.

The key factor in this growth was the launch of native iPlayer apps for iPad and Android in February 2011. Previously, the catch-up TV service had been available as a mobile website.

“12 months ago, 5 percent of the total consumption of BBC iPlayer was on mobile and tablet,” says Danker. “Fast forward to today, and that figure is 10 percent, one of our fastest growing areas. A year ago, people were sceptical about whether this whole mobile or tablet TV viewing was going to be a big deal. A year on, it’s an entirely different story. No one would question it.”

Figures released by the BBC when it launched the iPhone version earlier in December claimed the existing app had been downloaded 1.5m times on iPad and 1.2m times on Android.

The 500,000 new-user iOS installs since indicates that iPlayer is now well past the 3m mark for downloads in the UK alone – BBC Worldwide’s separate global version is available elsewhere in the world.

“Our audiences no longer expect to watch our programmes to a specific schedule in a specific location,” says Danker. “There is an independence that comes with this mobile TV. Whether you are curled up in bed with the tablet, or tuning in to live news when on the road, it’s about that choice.”

Danker adds that BBC radio may be “the secret winner” from the updated iPlayer app, due to the app’s ability to stream radio in the background while people do other things on their iPads or iPhones.

The iPlayer’s Android app has not yet been updated with the 3G streaming feature. Danker says it’s coming, but that there are a few performance issues to iron out before the app is ready for release. Even so, launching the original iPlayer app simultaneously on iOS and Android in February was a reflection of the BBC’s public service remit.

“It’s part of our charter, and part of not pre-judging who’s going to be successful in the market,” says Danker.”We’ve managed to benefit a great deal from that, building a really great partnership with Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and delivering a great experience. It hasn’t been as smooth a path as on Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) due to the greater variety of devices on Android. But we are very happy being on Android.”

That said, iOS still “punches above its weight” when it comes to usage of the iPlayer native app, despite the sharp growth in Android device sales over 2011.

With that remit in mind, what mobile devices will iPlayer move to next – Windows Phone? BlackBerry? Danker says that the BBC assesses every platform based on where the audience is, as well as balancing experience with value for money.

“In most cases, the very best thing we can do for our audience is a mobile web page,” he says, declining to be drawn on specific platform plans. “Where an app store means audiences have an easier way of finding the product, and ways of doing things above and beyond like live TV and background running, we’ll go there.”

The addition of 3G to the native iPlayer app is significant, but how much of a strain is it placing on the mobile operator networks? Danker says the BBC worked closely with all the main operators before rolling out the feature.

“It could have been a disaster if we had not prepared,” he says. “If we were smaller, we could have moved faster, but because our product and service is so big, we could have had an adverse effect on mobile networks in the UK. We were methodical: we worked with all the operators to prepare their networks for what we’re coming out with.”

Danker thinks that a 3G-enabled iPlayer adds value for the operators, especially those who are selling unlimited-data tariffs (although those plans are certainly much more scarce than they used to be).

He adds that the BBC sees mobile and 3G specifically as an important plank for its Olympic Games coverage in 2012. “We intend to do quite a bit over 3G for the Olympics. It’s a very live event, and people don’t always want to wait until they get home to experience it.”

“Virgin Media has an open platform that runs Flash and is very easy to develop for. As a result, we are able to reinvest in the red button,” says Danker. “Everyone thinks red button is a crappy old technology that doesn’t look as beautiful as we have come to expect. But the behaviour of pressing red when you want more is really powerful.”

With the native iPhone version of iPlayer out, 3G streaming seemingly working well, and an Android update on the way, what next for iPlayer on phones and tablets? The ability to cache programmes on the device for offline viewing is a key request from viewers, but Danker politely keeps his cards close to his chest about when or whether that feature will be added.

He does stress that the iPlayer team will only add new features if they do not clutter the application’s simplicity. “The technologist instincts to continually push new features in tend to be the wrong instincts,” he says.How about social features? Music apps like Spotify have jumped on board Facebook’s Open Graph to get more people sharing more activity on the social network. Meanwhile, startups like Zeebox have been making headlines for their intent to put social features at the heart of the TV viewing experience, albeit on a second screen to the one that’s being watched.

“Our focus with respect to social is that it needs to make the storyline better,” says Danker.

“Second-screen experiences can either distract from the programme, or they can add to the storyline of the programme. I think we will come up with examples where it adds to the storyline. That’s our North Star for this: not to add interactivity for interactivity’s sake.”

]]>http://gigaom.com/2011/12/19/419-bbc-iplayer-apps-iphone-update-adds-500k-new-users-in-a-week/feed/1Hands on with Zeebox, your new social TV guidehttp://gigaom.com/2011/10/28/zeebox-hands-on/
http://gigaom.com/2011/10/28/zeebox-hands-on/#commentsFri, 28 Oct 2011 12:30:35 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=429022Since he left his role as the head of BBC’s iPlayer and its troubled sibling YouView, Anthony Rose has been working on a secret Internet TV startup known as tBoneTV — but only occasionally talking about what he was doing — building a social television guide called Zeebox.

Getting started with Zeebox

You can think of Zeebox as a next-generation TV listings magazine. The app, which only works in the U.K. right now, is based around a simple interface — a list of programs that are on television right now.

The first step once you have downloaded it is to make sure you’re getting the right listings on-screen. In just a few seconds, I told Zeebox my cable provider, the area I live in, and it had what was on TV right then.

The next part of the process is to connect with your friends, logging in through Facebook and/or Twitter to see who else is using the app. Once that’s done, you can scroll through all your available channels and see who is watching what, or see which shows are currently most popular with Zeebox users.

Tapping on a show means you’re watching it — and takes you into a special program page that is packed with information. It has credits for the show itself, a stream of recent Twitter activity based on hashtags, links to apps and downloads related to the program and graphics that show you how popular the show is in real time.

Once you’re watching a show, other friends can see your avatar alongside it on their own listings page. If you see friends online watching a particular program, you can “join them” to indicate you’re watching the same show or start a chat about what it is you’re seeing. It’s swift and simple for the most part.

You’re not just limited to shows that are on right now, either; a quick swipe to the left or right lets you zip around the timeline to see what’s coming up or what you missed.

Here’s a program page for a repeat of the classic Batman TV series that happened to be showing while I was having a play around.

Next-gen remote control

But here’s the big trick that Zeebox has up its sleeve: You can also use it as a remote. That makes it not just a theoretical two-screen experience, but a real one. If you have a compatible internet television — specifically, one of dozens of models produced by Sony, (s sne) Samsung, Panasonic or LG — you can use Zeebox on your small screen to control what’s happening on your big screen.

That means when you click a show in the app, it flips the channel for you on your television. And if you decide to join a friend to watch a show in Zeebox, your TV will automatically change to the same station. My own television wasn’t compatible, but a friend on the other end of the line reported that it worked well.

Aside from that piece of magic, there are some neat little touches elsewhere, such as the progress bar on each graphic that tells you, in a subtle way, how long each show has left. It’s a well-built, smart and highly usable app.

Even so, however, success won’t be easy. There’s a ton of competition out there.

Services like Miso and GetGlue have built ways of “checking in” to TV programs, and over the last few months alone, we’ve covered the launch of similar services, including BuddyTV, Matcha.tv and Fav.tv. But I get the feeling that Zeebox is in as good a position as any of them, and maybe better: it’s far more useable and sleekly put together than most. And with Rose, it has a CTO who knows this stuff inside out. It reportedly has $5 million in funding too, which is useful.

What Zeebox could do better

Here are a few things Zeebox needs to do if it wants to rise above the crowd.

New countries. The biggest limitation, of course, is that it’s only serving British television. If Zeebox wants to make a real dent in the market, it’s going to have to crack other geographies as well. Apparently, it’s going to be branching out early next year — something that may be expensive, and may require strong connections with foreign TV providers. But it needs to happen.

More comprehensive channel lineups. Services like this live and die on the quality of their data. If I have access to a TV channel that isn’t on my Zeebox listing, then it’s useless. When looking with a friend, we noticed that there were a few problems with the EPG data. It was nothing major — outdated logos, for example — but it needs to be totally reliable to catch on.

TV on demand. We all know that a lot of viewing activity doesn’t happen alongside live TV. It would be interesting to see Zeebox hook into VOD content, or allow you to tell friends that you are watching a catch-up service. It breaks the TV listings model, but it’s where user activity is happening — especially among the sort of market who are likely to be using this app.

Program stacking. I can look at shows that have just finished, are on right now and are coming next, but I can’t remind myself to watch things that aren’t being shown right now. Nor can I set an alert to tell me whenever one of my friends starts watching one of my favorite shows. Features like that would combine to increase the social viewing experience.

Better notifications. As far as I could see, when a friend joins me to watch a program, there’s no real indication that I’ve got company. This means it doesn’t quite capture the feeling of all my friends swarming to watch a TV show with me. This could be improved. At the same time, the current hashtag feed from Twitter is interesting, but I’d like to be able to use it like a group chat among everyone who was watching with me — rather than the whole of Twitter.

Overall, it’s early days for Zeebox, and a lot could go wrong. But they have serious ambitions — the slogan is that it’s “the best thing to happen to TV since TV” — and a product that could match up to them.

]]>http://gigaom.com/2011/10/28/zeebox-hands-on/feed/9Netflix launch in UK and Ireland planned for early 2012http://gigaom.com/2011/10/24/video-wars-netflix-launch-in-uk-and-ireland-imminent/
http://gigaom.com/2011/10/24/video-wars-netflix-launch-in-uk-and-ireland-imminent/#commentsMon, 24 Oct 2011 09:21:25 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=426040After riding through a torrid few months with its on-off attempt to spin out its DVD rental business, Netflix (s: NFLX) is picking itself up off the floor with some good news for a change. In an announcement released Monday morning, the company said it was getting ready to launch a service in the U.K. and Ireland — its first outside the Americas.

Upon launch, Netflix members from the UK and Ireland will be able to instantly watch a wide array of TV shows and movies right on their TVs via a range of consumer electronics devices capable of streaming from Netflix, as well as on PCs, Macs and mobile tablets and phones.

Further, crucial, details have yet to be announced — prices, catalog and so forth. But it will be interesting to see where this goes: not least because the road is likely to be a little bumpier than Netflix is used to.

Unlike the U.S, Canada and other American markets, where Netflix was able to move into a leading spot pretty much without impediment, it seems unlikely the company will not be able steamroller its way into a dominant position in the U.K. and Ireland without resistance.

YouTube could be considered a competitor, too, especially since it has started offering a film rental service. Most broadband and cable providers offer serious TV and movie-on-demand packages, too, which are easier for existing users to sign up to and operate than a third-party services.

And then there’s Vdio, the secret new video streaming service from the founders of Skype and Rdio, which GigaOM’s Janko Roettgers uncovered last week. That’s due to launch, and you can bet that the founders will have learned plenty from the failure of their previous video business, Joost.

There’s another player that cannot be ignored, too, in the form of the BBC’s iPlayer. That massively popular service is largely used by people to watch TV from publicly-funded channels, so in theory it is much more like Hulu than Netflix. But while it doesn’t focus on showing movies online, it does have a hidden influence on the market because it’s free, funded by Britain’s TV license fee. It’s possible to argue that it has severe downward pressure on the pricing of the market, and perhaps one reason why Lovefilm’s British user base is proportionally smaller than Netflix’s. Certainly it sets a standard that Netflix will need to match.

Still, reactions in my Twitter steam suggested that there is still plenty of space for Netflix to wedge itself into the market. Lovefilm clearly has some weaknesses, including the breadth of its catalog, the availability of its streaming services and its customer service. Here are just some of them:

“Welcome the competition, really – will hopefully improve things all round. Not loyal, @lovefilm cust service is atrocious.” (@jeremynicolas)

“Absolutely loyal to Lovefilm, it was a UK venture after all. WIll be interesting to see how Netflix create their position…. Top 3 reasons to love lovefilm: 1) Ease of Use 2) Growing Watch Online portfolio 3) Pester free subscription” (@mattbambow)

Reed Hastings and his team will no doubt be taking note of that reaction and hoping they can provide a broad package that appeals to customers.

]]>http://gigaom.com/2011/10/24/video-wars-netflix-launch-in-uk-and-ireland-imminent/feed/4The BBC’s iPlayer for TVs goes HTML5http://gigaom.com/2011/08/08/bbc-iplayer-html5/
Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:45:21 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=389456The BBC introduced a completely revamped TV version of its popular iPlayer on Monday, aiming to simplify the user experience on the TV screen with remote-control-optimized navigation, personalization and picture-in-picture overlays. The new iPlayer for TV utilizes HTML5 and is initially only available on Sony’s (s SNE) PS3, but iPlayer TV Executive Product Manager Gideon Summerfield wrote on the BBC’s Internet blog that the increased adoption of standards like HTML5 in the connected-TV space will help to bring the product to other devices as well.

Check out a video demonstration of the new iPlayer below:

The BBC is taking a page out of Netflix’s (s NFLX) playbook with this new product; Netflix debuted its latest-generation UI on the PS3 as well, and the company has been using a combination of HTML5 and its APIs to rapidly innovate on its UI experience.

But the BBC’s move toward HTML5 also shows how important the emerging standard is becoming in the connected-TV world. Google (s GOOG) TV and Boxee already have full-fledged web browsers integrated into their TV platforms, and others are expected to follow suit. HTML5 is also part of the new D-Book standard for connected devices, which is meant to ensure a smooth digital-TV switchover in the U.K.

However, the BBC isn’t putting all of its eggs in one basket with its new product. Summerfield wrote on Monday that the BBC is also building a version based on Adobe (s ADBE) Flash 10.x and Air 2.x. From the blog post:

In addition to helping to make development easier we think building standard products on these two widely understood technologies will be able to address the majority of connected TV devices that we see our audience buying for their homes.

The BBC expects that in a few years, 50 percent of iPlayer usage will come directly from TVs.

]]>BBC’s iPlayer goes Global, embraces the iPadhttp://gigaom.com/2011/07/28/bbcs-global-iplayer-brings-doctor-who-to-the-ipad/
http://gigaom.com/2011/07/28/bbcs-global-iplayer-brings-doctor-who-to-the-ipad/#commentsThu, 28 Jul 2011 10:23:00 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=385027After endless development and lobbying from fans around the world, the BBC has finally opened up an international version of the iPlayer — its smash hit video-on-demand service.

It isn’t exactly the same as the British version of the iPlayer — for a start, it’s an app that only works on the iPad — but it’s being put forward as a pilot program that will expand its reach over time. As of today, users in eleven European countries will be able to download the iPlayer app and pay for access to a library of popular shows. Notable territories on this first launch are Germany, France, Italy and Spain, but the corporation hopes to roll out soon in America and elsewhere.

The app is priced roughly in line with other video subscription services, at €6.99 ($9.96) each month or €49.99 ($71.25) for a year. For their money, buyers get access to a range of BBC programming… and although it isn’t all of the business’s domestic output, the corporation boasts that it has more than 1,500 hours of programming available, from classics such as Fawlty Towers to modern hits like Sherlock and Top Gear. It also syndicates some shows from other British broadcasters, just as it does with TV stations such as BBC America (science fiction series Primeval and Misfits, for example).

Shows can be streamed over a Wi-Fi network, but interestingly they are also viewable offline and over a 3G connection. That’s something they believe is really important to making more than just an alternative to other ways of viewing. It’s also an advance on the current British version of the iPlayer, which currently only really does streaming to devices, so local users may start agitating for the offline features.

Executives are keen to stress that this is just the first part of their plan to roll out the app globally, a move which will include regionalizing the player — showcasing different lineups of shows for different countries, depending on their tastes — and potentially expanding it to other platforms too.

More broadly, though, it’s also the latest sign of the increasing globalization of cord-cutting online video services. Just as the BBC has its plans to stretch beyond Britain, Netflix is expanding from North America into Europe. It’s starting in Spain as a way of circling around local competitor Lovefilm, which was bought by Amazon earlier this year, but Britain will come soon afterward. It looks like the pieces are all falling into place for an epic tussle.

]]>http://gigaom.com/2011/07/28/bbcs-global-iplayer-brings-doctor-who-to-the-ipad/feed/4How do you get video on Kindle? Turn it into a comichttp://gigaom.com/2011/07/08/how-do-you-get-video-on-kindle-turn-it-into-a-comic/
http://gigaom.com/2011/07/08/how-do-you-get-video-on-kindle-turn-it-into-a-comic/#commentsFri, 08 Jul 2011 18:00:52 +0000http://gigaom.com/?p=373648Rumors have been flying around the industry for some time that Amazon is working on next generation versions of its Kindle that can do things like run video. Perhaps it will be a color version of the existing Kindle, with some extra bells and whistles. Perhaps it will be a tablet, produced in conjunction with Samsung. Perhaps it will be both.

However, until the release date of such a magical device is actually announced, the whole idea is little more than pie in the sky. So what do you do in the meantime if you want to kick back and watch some video on your Kindle?

Turns out it’s not impossible.

One developer at the BBC, Mark Longstaff-Tyrrell, came up with an ingenious solution to this pressing dilemma. By combining the broadcaster’s popular iPlayer video streaming service, a few bits of software and the magic of closed captioning, he has built what he calls (with tongue in cheek) “iPlayer for Kindle”.

Here’s how it works. The program plays with closed captions running. Each time there is a line of dialogue, a snapshot of the screen is taken. Over the course of an on-screen conversation or a series of scenes, these snapshots are compiled. Once that’s done, they can be put together to form a fairly accurate representation of the program — sort of like a stop-motion version of TV.

In addition, Longstaff-Tyrrell came up with a workaround for the moments when this closed caption system isn’t helpful — for example, when a dramatic moment happens on screen, but there is no subtitling because nobody is talking. At those moments the system takes a series of grabs at regular points through a scene.

Once all these pieces are in place, those captioned scenes and silent scenes are compiled into a file which you could save and flick through on your e-reader — looking something like a comic book that you can flip through to see the action. Here’s an example.

Obviously, this doesn’t turn your Kindle into a video player. It’s basically a long and carefully constructed joke. Longstaff-Tyrrell says, for example, that you can always print out your episodes onto paper, a format which “also allows distribution via the postal service” and that since a typical episode will be “weighing in at only 20MB and with offline viewing, this format has a clear advantage over existing mobile iPlayer services”. Still, who knows how it could be useful — it’s certainly a different way to catch up with your favorite programs.

So, yeah, it’s a rough and ready hack — but, like all the best ones, it has a sort of crazy elegance about it. Count me as a fan.